it's never too late
by ohstarswald
Summary: What really happened when the Thirteenth Doctor came into existence.


The first thing she realized was that she was going to need a new set of clothes.

Her second thought had her releasing an internal sigh - five seconds into being a woman and she was already thinking of clothes? She hated stereotypes. At least, she figured she did.

Then, again, she _had_ just used three of those five seconds to feel herself up and figure out which pronouns she needed. But did she _really_ care? Of course not. She'd chosen a unisex name for a reason.

The Doctor shook her head; she was derailing her train of thought. Was that something the Doctor did now? Derailing? She intended to find out, in time. In the present, she had other things to worry about.

"I need to find Clara," she said to nobody in particular, more quietly than she had anticipated. Her TARDIS was just that - quiet. She tried again. "I need to find Clara!"

Her new voice echoed across the console room, sound waves bouncing off of chalkboards that she no longer found tasteful and a time rotor she perceived as too showy-offy and flashy for her liking. She didn't yet have the time to worry about interior decorating, though. She leapt towards a monitor.

About to grip both handles on it, the Doctor stared at her sleeves. Her hands! Where were her hands? Did she forget to add them to the new model? No, no, she could flex her fingers and brush the fabric inside the sleeves of the previously well-fitting jacket. They were attached just fine. With a sad sigh she pushed them up to her elbows, reluctant to crease folds into what she considered dress clothes.

Oh, gods. She had to worry about _support_ next. And not the moral kind.

"After I find Clara," the Doctor announced. She willed her admittedly spotty memory to replay what she had seen moments before she had become a _she_. Flashes of a perfectly wide face, a perfect button nose, perfect wide, brown eyes - _oh,_ how she missed looking into those eyes. She could get lost in them if she wanted too, so could the _he_ she had been five minutes ago.

"Save it for the reunion, Thirteen!" she told herself. She stopped with a grin. "Huh. I suppose that's right. I'm the Thirteenth." Her lips fell into a frown. "I hope that's not unlucky. It can't be. Not this early."

She looked down at long, slender, _young_ and _lightly used_ fingers hovering over a keypad. "I don't even know what coordinates to use," she whispered, incredulous of a newfound stupidity, "I don't even know where she could be. _When_ she could be."

As quickly as she had lost hope, she turned back to a bleeping on the monitor, nearly giving herself whiplash. It was TARDIS talk for ' _Look here, you daft old woman!'_

"Oh, you're beautiful!" The Doctor kissed the monitor, wondering briefly how long ago it had last been cleaned, deciding she didn't care. One step closer to Clara, and all that. "Protocol twenty-seven! Why didn't I think of that?"

She circled the console in 180 degrees, locating a new keypad composed completely of buttons in different shades of red. "Sent a distress signal to TARDISes within the same galaxy." She typed a seven-digit color code. "Wait for a TARDIS to respond." She pushed a green button to the side; new electromagnetic waves blasted through whatever atmosphere she was parked inside of. A few moments of tentative waiting, and a new ding sparked her attention. "Trace the signal back." She checked the monitor for the third time. "And, bingo-bongo, I've got a trace!" She shivered. "Can you make a note to let me know to never say 'bingo-bongo' again?"

The TARDIS whirred happily in response.

ooOOooOOoo

Clara strolled along idly, carefully reaching out to stroke any leaves that didn't look sharp. She had plenty of time to stop and smell the roses.

All the time in the universe, if she really wanted it.

She breathed in fresh air as if she still needed it. She smiled to herself. She was a fragile immortal, choosing her own fate, getting lost on a foreign planet full of flora and fauna that would never be able to survive on Earth. Living quite the life, if she said so herself.

Glancing down at her right hand, Clara closed her fingers into a fist before they could make contact with a brambled bunch of spiky plants. Bringing her hand closer to her face, she inspected her pointer finger. The papercut she had gotten just a week ago from one of her books was barely noticeable, the never-to-be-healed wound covered with the self-adhesive, artificial skin Ashildr had affixed to it two days before. Clara sighed again, half out of desperation. She never did believe she would be someone to admit that the sight of their own blood would have had them over the moon.

"The joys of being stuck in between heartbeats my _arse_ ," Clara muttered bitterly, parroting the words Ashildr had used. The girl was clever - too clever for her own good. Clara bent her finger a few times over, losing her focus on it once she was satisfied the artificial skin was still attached.

Only a moment before she started calculating how many paces away she was from her TARDIS-turned-diner, she swore the wind picked up. Clara stopped, watched the leaves behind her feet swirl into a miniature vortex of their own, and felt herself gasp.

A TARDIS was materializing into existence. No, not hers. Not anyone else's but _his._ It was always him, him, _him._

Clara couldn't move. She couldn't let her footfalls carry her away to safety - not her own, _his safety_ \- in the solace of her TARDIS, to the warmth provided knowing that the Doctor was safer without her.

It wasn't a _good_ warmth, Clara grasped with a start. The navy blue box almost blended in with the trees. The warmth was _bad,_ it was the burning in her throat when she thought of the Doctor. The St. John's logo opposite the police box instructions was moving away, being pulled inward. The warmth was returning, in her eyes, her vision stung by tears she didn't think she could produce after crying so many.

Over the Doctor. Over the alien who spirited her away on boring Wednesdays, away from grading and test-making and conferences and meetings before classes and normal life, who instilled the recklessness deep within her that she couldn't quite let go.

Clara blinked. The door, smudged with her own fingerprints alongside the Doctors, was open.

The woman who stood in _his_ place looked so ridiculous in _his_ oversized coat that Clara almost laughed. She shook her head, once, twice instead. _She_ was probably the prettiest woman Clara had ever seen - and the thought was coming from someone who'd been to a planet reserved specifically for beautiful women of every race and species and type no more than a month ago.

"Hello, Clara."

Oh, please _God_ no. Clara's name sounded perfect when it passed over those lips.

Pink lips that magnetised Clara's eyes to them; hazel eyes that pulled Clara's in even more; blonde hair that Clara could see herself pulling on if and when they ever found themselves alone -

 _No. I can't._ "You can't…" Clara told the Doctor - _whataWOMAN! -_ meekly. "You can't be here."

The Doctor shrugged, the movement lost in the broad shoulders of _his_ coat, forcing Clara to bite her lip from saying much else. "Well, that's just too bad for the universe. Here I am." She was smiling, in a situation like this, of all things.

Clara couldn't stop herself from mirroring her counterpart. "Doctor?"

"Yes, Clara?" The woman cleared her throat. "I'm sorry. It's been so long since I've gotten to say it. Your name. It really is a lovely name. I hope you've kept it. Did you?" She paused; Clara nodded. "Good. I'm glad. Or else this would be really awkward, wouldn't it? What were you saying?"

Clara dared to step closer. Cautious hands fell onto the Doctor's shoulders; a part of Clara feared oh so badly that the moment she touched her she would be gone, gone like smoke in the wind, and Clara would wake up in her empty bed on her nearly empty TARDIS. Faking an inspection, she let her gaze linger on the Doctor's new lips again, then on her nose, her hair - _finallyablondethankyouforthis,God -_ and those eyes. Those eyes that Clara knew damn well that she would not hesitate to get lost in.

"I think you look like a girl who broke into her father's closet to play dress-up." Clara adopted a serious tone, but cracked a grin.

The Doctor looked down at herself, tugging on one side of her jacket with one hand, loosening the zipper on her hoodie. "It can't be _that_ bad, Clara. Everything fit perfectly not a minute ago, for your info - " Clara was brushing the left half of her hair out of her face. Clara's hand brushed her cheek, no longer than half a second. The Doctor figured she wouldn't be able to put together half a sentence.

"I also think this look works perfectly for you," Clara told her.

"And why is that, Clara?" The Doctor didn't plan on letting her answer. She had Clara's face cupped in her hands before she could. "My Clara. It really is you."

Clara finally let the beginnings of a laugh into the open air. "My Doctor. It really is you." She laughed again, a hand reaching up to wrap a lock of blonde hair around her injured finger. "I'm loving this new 'do. Where ever did you get it done?" Not once did her eyes leave the Doctor's; not once did the Doctor feel either heart beating. Answerless, the Doctor knew all that was left to do was act.

The Doctor caught the back of Clara's neck and pulled her in, trapped her right up in her lips.

Clara saw fireworks of reds and golds and blues on her eyelids, took over the Doctor more easily than the latter would have liked to admit. After all, Clara finally found something she had experience in that the Doctor didn't.

(Kissing girls. It was kissing girls.)

For the first time since she had been revived by the man she had loved, she was grateful she never had to come up for air while tasting the faint trace of mint on the mouth of the woman she loved. The Doctor certainly wasn't complaining either, fingers dug so deep into Clara's hair that she thought she would never get the use of her hands back. Like she minded.

When they pulled away against their will, only complying to the feel of their cells screaming _You've got to take a break!_ at them, their eyes fell into each other's once again.

When Clara leaned back a tad too far, the Doctor caught her, arms cradling her body like they were a perfect match, sending Clara back into the warmth.

When she realized the bad warmth had gone away, that the good warmth set every ounce of her being on fire in a blaze under the Doctor's touch, Clara pecked her lips again.

The Doctor grinned a new grin. She pulled Clara back upright. "I," she whispered, returning Clara's favor. "Have." Kiss. "Waited." Kiss. "Four-point-five." Kiss. "Billion years." Kiss. "For." Kiss. "You."

Clara flashed another smile, another twinkle in her eyes. Thirteen could die happy, drowning in those _eyes!_ Clara downplayed it. "How _ever_ will you cope?" she teased, fingers already on the Doctor's chest, playing gently with the hoodie's zipper.

The Doctor put on what she believed to be a thinking face; Clara laughed again, a music playing in the Doctor's ears and on her twenty-seven brains that she never wanted to go away. "I'm not very sure, but I do, however have an idea."

Keeping one arm behind Clara's back, the Doctor pushed the TARDIS door open wider with her foot. The console room's lights glowed a little brighter. _Hello again, old friend,_ Clara whispered in her thoughts. Standing in the threshold of the world she had come to call her own, saving people, running from the bad ones, all with enough time to get in a quip, the like, had never felt so good.

"To you, Clara Oswald," the Doctor said, "I propose a toast." Her free hand dug into her pocket, emerging only when two identical keys were caught between her fingers. She offered one to Clara, who closed it in her palm, kissed her knuckles, before she presented it to the Doctor once more.

The Doctor and Clara clinked their TARDIS keys together as a warning to the universe. _Watch out, world,_ the Doctor thought. She kissed Clara's giggling lips with a pleasure she never knew she needed so badly fulfilled. Clara grabbed her cheeks and pulled the Doctor in ever the more deeper.

 _The Doctor and Clara Oswald are back in the TARDIS._


End file.
